To wonder what chamgain shami Chakrabarti drinks

[Thefishewife]

It emerged last week that Baroness Chakrabarti’s son won a place at the £18,000-a-year Dulwich College in south London after sitting a tough entrance exam.
Critics say it shows she believed selective education is fine for those who can pay for it – but not for parents who cannot afford it.

Maybe it's Moët 🍾🍾🍾

YY Countess. If you're a politician who believes in the state education system (which is mostly pretty decent, in this country) you should absolutely send your kids to state schools.

(I am less bothered about politicians sending their children to grammar/church-backed schools, as they are still in the state system and will be affected by all DfE legislation and guidelines.)

She is hypocritical - just like all the other lefties who rage about the introduction of more choice for "normal, working class families", but live charmed lives themselves including sending their DC to private schools. Looks like she is not only putting her leftie principles to one side for this but also for the "snooper's charter" - oh, how LADY Chakrabati has changed since her Liberty days. Amazing what an ermine neckscarf can do, eh?

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-peer-shami-chakrabarti-dubbed-9009201?utm_content=buffer3f69f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#ICID=sharebar_twitter

this is a child being sent straight to an elite private secondary, despite there being plenty of decent state schools in the area, and certainly better than the state options available in many parts of the country.

I think this is more about class than political leanings. It probably never occurred to her to send her child to a state school, despite the fact that as you say, there are plenty of good ones around her. I feel angry about this because it will just be used as proof that "state schools aren't good enough" when its actually part of a mindset that a state school can NEVER be good enough.
Today 72% of senior Judges were privately educated. And as they are in their sixties or over they were all educated under the old grammar/secondary modern system. So even then large numbers of the most influential in society rejected state education altogether.

What should a socialist do, if there is a choice between their children's education and welfare, and their principles?

Should they send their child to a failing school, when they have another, better option (selective school/private school), because their principles matter more than their child, or should,they do the best for their child?

I resent my parents for putting their principles ahead of my needs and welfare - but it sounds as if some people on here would say that they did the right thing, and I am just collateral damage - as is herethereandeverywhere.

Can anyone explain why what my parents, and herethere's did, and the effects it had on us, was OK?

And is it OK, as a parent, NOT to give your child the best education you can het for them, because of your political beliefs?

Of course it's fine to make sure your children have enough good food and a warm bedroom each and the sort of quality environment that gives them a headstart at any school.

Private tutoring - I suppose that's on the cusp.

But school fees - that's a bridge too far.

I can't see the logic. There are plenty of better reasons to loathe Chakrabarti and Diane Abbott.

"What should a socialist do, if there is a choice between their children's education and welfare, and their principles?"

If the local state schools are all seriously dreadful (which I doubt, in London these days) then yes there is an argument for socialist politicians to send their children to private school WHILE ALSO fighting to improve the local schools for people who don't have that choice.

Most lefties believe (or claim to believe!) that it is in children's interests to be educated alongside the rest of the population so that they can understand and be part of their local community, rather than hived off to spend their childhood with the global elite.

I am '52 vintage so this story goes back a long way. My parents were Labour activists in a Labour town. When I was two I was not talking so
My parents pulled Labou strings to get me into the council's nursery school where I flourished and started talking (and according to my elder sister have not stopped since) - and kept another child out of the place while I went on to Grammar School (there being no comprehensive school in the area where I reached secondary age) and Oxford.

Sp I am as much a beneficiary of hereditary privilege and middle class sharp elbows as Abbott's children or come to that as Blair or Cameron - our parents did all they possibly could for us.

Should they send their child to a failing school, when they have another, better option (selective school/private school), because their principles matter more than their child, or should,they do the best for their child?

No easy answer to this one - politicians get criticised whatever they do - Fiona Millar, arch comprehensive campaigner, sent her kids to a local school that was struggling at the time but still gets lambasted on Twitter because her own parents sent her to a grammar.

There is no solution except bringing all schools up to an acceptable standard - grammar schools don't really help since the vast majority of children living in the catchment of a failing school would still go to that school once it became a secondary modern. This would not stop people going private though - almost all the schools in the county I live in are at least decent and many outstanding - doesn't stop reams of people going private.

this sums it up for me

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/10/shami-chakrabarti-education-system-grammars-private-schools-local-comprehensive

She's a hypocrite & she is actively damaging the system she wants us all to use.

I would bet a huge amount of money (which I don't have!) that her choices were not incredibly expensive elective private school vs shitesville failing comp full of thuggish kids chucking chairs around .. it is reductive to suggest it was.

She's hypocrite. And so is Diane Abbott.

The Tories have a 17 point lead this morning. Fucking depressing.

selective not elective

And no HPFA sending a child to grammar school is not rejecting state education- grammar schools were and are part of state education.

I wouldn't turn many hairs at her choice of a private school for her child if she hadn't been arguing that state grammars are wrong.

So selective state schools are not ok because they harm the kids who don't get to go to them. So far, fair enough.
But then somehow selective private schools magically don't have any impact on anyone else?

I could not believe I was reading about another one op.

Two faced slimy cheating bastards, mostly all grammar educated, mostly dc selective school etc educated but lets pull up the bloody ladder.

awful.

Seumas Milne lives in Richmond, home to some of the best state schools in the country, still chose selective grammars for both his kids. Rank hypocrisy

And no HPFA sending a child to grammar school is not rejecting state education- grammar schools were and are part of state education

I don't think that is what I said. I pointed out that even when we had lots of grammar schools many people still rejected them, as witnessed by the 72% of senior judges who could have gone to grammar schools, but didn't. I think we can assume that most of them would have passed the 11+ yet their parents still chose private education.

Laniakea - yes, that Guardian comment piece is excellent.

Is Pizza Express posh, like?

Laniakea Mon 10-Oct-16 14:19:18

Yes good piece thank you for that. It makes me feel sick.

They want to use our dc as experiments in schools that have often been failing for years and years, they want to cut us off from a choice of education but at the same time do nothing about private schools.

So we come down to private system and a comprehensive system which has many weaknesses. But this is supposed to create a fair society?

You simply cannot do away with grammars and other selective schools, if your keeping private schools. There has to be a choice.

She is without a doubt a hypocrite, and has from now on no traction on a debate about ensuring equal education for all in our schools. Tory lite.

Plus Jeremy Corbyn, in selecting her has shown he is not a man of principle. He continues to demonstrate a tacit lack of intellect, another Tory lite in that respect.

Labour voter all my voting life. Not sure now what to do - leaving this country is looking a great possibility after my son leaves school. Can't bear to watch the train wreck.

What should a socialist do, if there is a choice between their children's education and welfare, and their principles?

either stick by their principles or if they don't, do not claim to be a socialist

how is Jeremy Corbyn a Tory lite

There is no solution except bringing all schools up to an acceptable standard.

This ^^. It's how they do it in Finland.

Of course that should happen JellyFrizz.

But it's not like we seriously believe the reason she sent her son to Dulwich is that there were no other schools of an acceptable standard available to her, is it?

What about giving the poor woman a break - she was not a politician when her son started there. Do you want her to pull him out now?
She went to state schools - she does not have a fantasy understanding of them.
Has anyone stopped for a moment to wonder about the other criteria which she might have had to have considered - the child's security for instance?
How many threats on her life do you think she has received? How much security does she have in her home?
This is simply not as straightforward as some people on here are suggesting